Memphis firefighter Jeremy Parker, at right, attended a December discussion on the city's penison problems at City Hall. Parker is a non-vested employee who misses the deadline cutoff by days. Mayor AC Wharton, his staff and experts, made a presentation on the state of the city's pension plan. Many employees were on hand to hear the presentation, city council members took turns asking questions. (Karen Pulfer Focht/The Commercial Appeal)

The Commercial Appeal

4:21 p.m.: Council holds prevailing wage ordinance to review changes

Memphis City Council members held an ordinance amendment that would expand the number of contracts under which workers would be required to receive prevailing wages.

The prevailing wage ordinance currently requires any company with a city contract worth more than $500,000 to pay the going rate for the construction work. The amendment would lower the contract value to $50,000, considerably increasing the number of city contracts covered under the ordinance.

Councilwoman Wanda Halbert asked for the item, which was last reviewed in January, to be held for two weeks so council members could review changes in committee before voting.

Councilman Lee Harris, who proposed the amendment, said attorneys tweaked language to make sure it was legally enacted. Last time it was discussed, some council members wondered if Memphis could keep its prevailing wages requirement after the state repealed most of its laws on prevailing wages.

Council Chairman Jim Strickland also noted council previously asked to know in real numbers how much the changes would mean for the city's projects budget.

The Council has adjourned for the day.

-- Christina Wright

4:14 p.m.: Mayor A C Wharton's proposal to launch a 401(k)-style retirement plan for new and future city employees prompted Council member Joe Brown to say this: "You guys have hijacked this government."

Reporter Daniel Connolly has the full story from Wharton's presentation here.

Council members sprinted through a five-item Budget Committee agenda, holding most items for two weeks.

The committee agreed to postpone the vote on a street paving resolution Council Chairman Jim Strickland proposed, an item dedicating $500,000 in the next two years to the music museum in the new Hard Rock cafe and an item to eliminate the city's weights and measures program.

Some council members complained they were not given enough time ahead of the meeting to understand the three postponed items. The Council will vote Tuesday afternoon on two other items accepting grant funds.

-- Christina Wright

1:31 p.m.: Deputy chief provides update on rape kit testing

Deputy Chief Jim Harvey of the Memphis Police Department presented an update on the city's backlog of sexual assault kits Tuesday. He said that more results are expected at the end of the month and that the city is seeking bids for a vendor that would test large numbers of kits.

He presented a monthly update on numbers. The department has 12,146 sexual assault kits on hand. Of those, 4,086 have been processed for serology, an initial step that determines if there's enough DNA present for further testing. Thirty have been tested for DNA, according to a chart he presented.

Harvey explained that this number only includes those kits that the police could identify by looking at the outside of the box and that the actual number is probably higher. A total of 5,553 have not been tested, according to the chart he presented.

A rape kit contains samples of bodily fluids collected from the body of a sexual assault victim. The backlog of untested rape kits came to public attention last year. Wharton issued an executive order in October in which he told the police to clear the backlog as soon as possible.

-- Daniel Connolly

11:38 a.m.: The Council's communication session has wrapped up, and a busy early afternoon of committee meetings will start at noon with an attorney-client session. If you haven't read it by now, check out Daniel Connolly's update on Beale Street Landing and report on more funding for the Riverfront Development Corp. that was posted Monday night.

Mayor AC Wharton is speaking to the Memphis Rotary Club at noon; I'll be there to share what he says.

-- Kyle Veazey

10:30 a.m.: How the City Council works as a body became a debate at a workshop about communications Tuesday morning.

The workshop took a detour when Council member Harold Collins said the cookie-cutter modules presented weren't relevant to the council members, because their relationship with each other and the mayor's office is different than other relationships in someone's life.

Council member Wanda Halbert brought up the council's strategies with an argument she has had in the past. She wants to know the plan for the whole city so she and the rest of council can move in one direction.

However, Collins, Shea Flinn and Myron Lowery said they were elected for their districts. Their role is to push projects for their districts and majority vote rules on what should or shouldn't be done at any given time, the councilmen said.

After a bathroom break, facilitator Shelley Baur set up one-on-one "coaching sessions" that won't require media to be in the room. Baur then returned to her prepared presentation.

-- Christina Wright

9:32 a.m.: Council Chairman Jim Strickland hates sushi.

It's one of the things City Council members are learning about each other at a three-hour communications session that started around 8:45.

Other highlights from Council members thus far: Lee Harris is pretty sure it's near-impossible for a politician to remain consistent (one of the tips for being viewed with integrity) because the nature of the job is to compromise. Wanda Halbert is a visual learner, preferring written communication. Harold Collins wants to know how this relates to him today. The administration sent him a text thanking him for being there.

Halbert said she didn't receive a text.

-- Christina Wright

9:17 a.m.: City Clerk says city attorney's office is collecting fees without his consent

A Memphis City Council committee meeting turned heated Tuesday morning as City Court Clerk Thomas E. Long accused the city attorney's office of going against his will by collecting past-due fines and fees without his consent.

Long said the city attorney's office has found a way to collect electronic data about the past-due fines and fees his office handles. He provided copies of an e-mail from last year in which he told the vendor, Xerox, not to provide the information to anyone without his approval, but said his wishes were ignored.

Long's office handles items such as parking tickets, ordinance violations and other fines and fees.

He said the clerk's office has its own staff for collecting past-due fees, and that the current system is inefficient. "We're doing a better job than this individual who gets the money," Long said.

The old fees now go to attorney Handel Durham, who collects them. The firm had earned about $200,000 since June 2012, Regina Morrison Newman of the city attorney's office said in the meeting.

The City Court Clerk is elected separately from the mayor and City Council. Long was first elected to the position in 1995. Council member Wanda Halbert said she didn't approve of the city attorney's office getting involved. "The bottom line to it all is that's a separate office. We can't go in and run it, and neither can the administration," she said.

The dispute was scheduled to go back before the City Council in two weeks.

-- Daniel Connolly

8:50 a.m.: The Council has started what's termed as a 'communications session' with communications consultant Shelley Baur.

We'll have two reporters from our Politics and Government Team there -- Daniel Connolly and Christina Wright. Follow Daniel on Twitter at @DanielConnolly and follow Christina at @WrightNow86.

In advance of the first committee meeting, here are four items that could generate news:

1. Wharton's 401(k) proposal, reported with detail by Daniel in Sunday's CA, is another piece of the larger picture of pension funding that has characterized the Council over the winter months -- and will occupy a huge chunk of time into the spring and summer, too.

2. From 8:30 until noon, the Council will participate in a session designed to bring better communication skills among members.

3. Strickland's item to pave streets on a quicker schedule is an issue that evokes interest from every Memphian who has to drive on sometimes treacherous streets. But it's just a resolution asking Wharton to include such funding in the budget he presents to the city in April. Passage of it doesn't mean that -- poof! -- your streets will magically be repaved every two decades.

4. At 12:40 p.m., the Council will received its monthly update on the city's rape kits backlog.